Csa-----is It Possible To Value Your Body?

[EveHarrington]

I am looking for feedback from other CSA survivors.

I don't value my body in the least. I think it's understandable why. The CSA and then being "involved" with those who never valued me/my body and only cared about sex. My fault, I know------I didn't realize who I was picking.

I don't know how to change my mindset. These beliefs are so ingrained. I know I shouldn't do these things but I get lonely and beggars can't be choosers, right?

I know I need to stop choosing the wrong people, but beyond that I need to change my deeper beliefs about how my body has no value.

I stay alone most of the time. Out of sight, out of mind----but ignoring the problem does nothing to fix it.

Where do I start? How do I start to believe that my body has a value?

 

[Sideways]

I live in the hope that everything that I've learned can be unlearned, and so hopefully the answer is yes, we can learn to value our body.

But I have no idea how. My body is my enemy.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

These beliefs are so ingrained.

This sticks out at me as I remember just months ago, all of my beliefs were tightly ingrained and how I delt with that also applies here, I think.

Where do I start? How do I start to believe that my body has a value?

Well, for what its worth, my opinion is, you need to start slower.

I dont think you can find value of your body until you find value of you in general. Just my experience. Im doing that one at a time. Finding attitbutes also increases my value, to me.

Beliefs that were very ingrained I had to counter and basically "pound" the counter belief. Say it, countering it, over and over and over... though it felt like a lie, until I started to see that its possible to be different, and start to believe it.

That might be different for you.

Value of you in general, I think, will flow over to valuing your body. You wont feel like having sex with some scum bag guy that asks because you are better than that and deserve better then that. Its all interconnected. But unless you value you in general, I dont think its possible to value your body, in my opinion.

Just my two cents for whatever its worth.

 

[watundah]

Hmm.
I am wondering what that might look like to you.

This is what works for me.
I am a CSA survivor and I do have dissociation issues but need my body to calm my anxiety. I get a lot of exercise and if I don't I get antsy and agitated. Interestingly, my perp did things to me in the woods but I still love being out in nature. I think that speaks volumes about the power of nature and hiking gets me to a better place. I also live in one of the healthiest states in the country so there is big focus on fitness and healthy eating. (Lots of opportunities)

Maybe doing some positive things to be IN your body will help you to see how the benefit of moving it has on calming, grounding, centering and sets loose all kinds of wonderful chemicals like endorphins, dopamine, etc.

Have you any interest in walking in a park, riding a bike, yoga classes or DVDs, massage - I think it may be a matter of relearning that the body has a positive link to the brain. Can you take a 20-30 minute walk and feel how good the sun feels or the trees look? Can you breathe in deep breaths of fresh air and feel the air in your lungs?

 

[EveHarrington]

<edit>

Maybe I'm trying to do too much at once. Maybe I'm not meant to "value" my body. Maybe the concept of valuing your body is overrated. Maybe I should accept things as they are.

 

[brae]

<edit>

Maybe I'm trying to do too much at once. Maybe I'm not meant to "value" my body. Maybe th...

yes this is such a difficult topic/part of healing, i feel u so much<3 i think ur so right here- we cant find value until we find acceptance. i feel like starting to find value is a natural byproduct of acceptance and unconditional presence with ourselves? because thru acceptance we r finding ways to not judge ourselves for being wounded, which leaves more room for different perspecctives and potential for shifting core beliefs.
have u heard of teal swan? she is a csa /ritual abuse survivor and now healer, i hav her book "shadows before dawn" which is about finding self acceptance and self love after trauma, i def reccommend

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Maybe I'm trying to do too much at once.

This I will agree with, the remainder I wont.

I know it doesnt matter but you and I have many of the same issues and what I see is you trying to do everything at once. I understand that thought process. I was there too, posting on this site and everyone here telling me to slow down. I have to be reminded often.

Take one issue at a time. Learning to find good things about yourself and beginning to see you do indeed have good things about you, will have a domino effect. You will start to value yourself and then because you value yourself you will also value your body.

And from my experience that can take a while.

From my view, for whatever its worth, you are trying to cross the finish line without running the race.

Again, just my 2 cents from my own experience.

 

[EveHarrington]

And the railroading is starting once again, despite the fact that mods told both of us to put each other on ignore.

Yes, ignore works to an extent, but when the issue is about someone who knows no boundaries and walks all over other people, hijacking their threads and making it all about them, I have to step up and say STOP when the person starts to cross that boundary ever so slightly.

So why is it that you believe you no longer have to abide by mod requests to have me on ignore? (We were both told to put each other on ignore and it WORKED as this forum is big enough that there is no need for either of us to talk to one another.) (I can see your posts when not logged in; I do not respond to your threads because I actually listened when I was told to put you on ignore to avoid future conflict.)

I am making this public and asked for mod help from @joeylittle as it doesn't seem right that you can start up this behavior again that ended up in both of us getting banned last time. I asked you privately to back off and it didn't work (boundaries!!!!) so now I am making my request public.

You are the only person the ignore feature doesn't work with because it's not just about ignoring your responses rather you hijack threads and make the topic all about you so that the OP no longer is involved in the conversation.

 

[joeylittle]

I have to step up and say STOP when the person starts to cross that boundary ever so slightly.

It's one thing to say stop, and it's another to throw rocks with 'stop' written on them. That's what I see happening here.

So why is it that you believe you no longer have to abide by mod requests to have me on ignore?

For future readers: a request that members put each other on ignore is never anything more than a request; a suggestion, so that we don't end up here. Eve, the specific kind of lashing out that you are doing here, and have done recently in other threads, demonstrates that you're not able to rein in your reactivity right now. You're being placed on a temp ban.

I asked you privately to back off and it didn't work (boundaries!!!!) so now I am making my request public.

And, for future readers: if you need conflict resolution help with another member, and you either aren't sure how to approach, or find that you aren't begin heard - posting about it in a thread isn't the way to go. You can PM me directly, you can report a post, or you can open a help-ticket (depending on what level of confidentiality you want).

Public throw-downs like these aren't effective.

 

[Lotis]

My body is my enemy.

@Ragdoll Circus I totally get it. I feel the same way.

 

[Lotis]

Maybe I'm not meant to "value" my body. Maybe the concept of valuing your body is overrated. Maybe I should accept things as they are.

@EveHarrington this is not true and I think way deep down inside you know that as well. OF COURSE we are all meant to value our bodies; although they may not feel like our bodies at times they are ours. You take care of yourself in small ways that you probably don't even realize it is valuing your body. Small things like showers and smelling good and shaving your legs (even if only in the summertime haha) :roflmao:
I get it. I understand what you mean and I feel like my body is my enemy all of the time. My body has betrayed me; made me feel things I didn't want to feel. If I didn't have a body I wouldn't have been abused! I don't have an answer for you because I struggle with this as well. BUT I do agree with @lostforgottensoul in that "I dont think you can find value of your body until you find value of you in general."
I think valuing your body starts with showing it love. Does that sound silly? Be kind to your body be kind to yourself.
~L

 

[joeylittle]

You take care of yourself in small ways that you probably don't even realize it is valuing your body. Small things like showers and smelling good and shaving your legs (even if only in the summertime haha) :roflmao:

Personally, I struggle mightily with these when things are bad; I'm sure I'm not the only person who has had to bully themselves into washing their body, or been unable to brush their hair. I can't look in a mirror these days. Smelling good is, right now, a bridge too far. I'll settle for not losing my job due to offensive body odor.

I also don't think I'm alone in not being able to successfully bust some of these cognitive distortions.

The most success I had with beginning to develop a relationship with my body was when I was able to work with it and get it to be stronger.

I think valuing your body starts with showing it love. Does that sound silly? Be kind to your body be kind to yourself.

I think this works for some people.

The concept of being kind to myself is very advanced, for me. Believe me, I try. But when I set the bar that high, it's so far away, it's like I can't even see the finish line. So, right now, I'm putting a great deal of energy into being neutral towards myself - just turning the intensity down on the self-loathing.

It's a kind of black and white thinking all it's own, to buy into the notion that the solution to negative thoughts is positive ones.

I advocate getting to neutral. Finding ways both in cognition and behavior to diminish the self-hate, turn down the panic, be as nonjudgmental as is possible in any given moment.

And doing things. Telling myself to accept my body wouldn't even work, when I could interact with it. I know, I fruitlessly tried. But figuring out ways to inhabit it that were not self-destructive, that were not rooted in complete avoidance - they were simply, ways of inhabiting my body - that was beginning to work. Nothing too advanced. Letting it walk, paying attention to all the pretty amazing stuff that goes into that. Or, doing a progressive physical awareness thing, like a relaxation or a body scan - all of that is a step in the right direction.

Knowing what your biggest challenges are, and setting realistic but doable goals both in terms of your thoughts/feelings and in terms of your doings/actions - regardless of the sequence - that's what I believe in.

It's never going to be the same path as anyone else. There's no rule that says you need to do one thing before another. And if where you are at is, you can appreciate a cup of tea because it warms your throat and your belly - that's awesome! Do that. Do it even when you don't believe you deserve to feel anything nice. It'll all chip away at the bigger picture.